Night of Power, page 7
She understood Dena’s reluctance to come along on this visit, was glad her stepmother had found a way to duck out—but she was going to miss Dena. She was not at all sure she would be able to enjoy this without help.
As Russell had predicted, the surrounding territory gradually became less urban as they penetrated deeper into Long Island’s easternmost county, Suffolk. Buildings shortened, trees grew taller, and the murderous traffic began to ease up slightly. They sped on in silence, having exhausted most topics of conversation and all the songs to which they both knew the words on the long drive from Halifax. Jennifer passed the time by proving theorems of Euclidean geometry with jabberwocky logic on the computer screen; Russell pulled his headphones down from the ceiling and listened to music.
Jennifer was just deciding that if you didn’t look too hard through the trees and notice the suburban tracts beyond and the utter absence of mountains in any direction, you might indeed pretend you were on Nova Scotia’s Bicentennial Highway, when her father disengaged his headphones and let the ceiling reel them back up. “Jenniflower?”
“Yes, Daddy?”
“About our drive through Harlem yesterday…”
She sat up slowly. “I’m straight on that. Momma and I talked about it. It’s history, Daddy.”
“Then let’s rewrite history.”
“Huh?”
“I’m very proud of the way you conducted yourself: you were brave. Nonetheless I don’t plan to mention it to your grandparents.”
“Oh. You’re right. No sense scaring Grandpa.”
“It’s Mrs. Grandpa I’m worried about.” “Mrs. Grandpa” was their private name for Regina; Russell knew how Jennifer felt about her.
“Her? I don’t care if she’s worried.”
“You should,” he said darkly.
“Why?”
“Never mind. Just go along with me, all right? We had a nice uneventful drive to New York.”
“Okay.”
Orient Point was one of the Last Outposts of Gracious Living on the island, and intended to remain so forever. Here a handful of Long Island’s wealthiest citizens, driven eastward by the inexorable tide of middle-class humanity spilling out of the city, had made their last stand with the sea at their backs. They protected themselves with a wall of money, which expressed itself in tough zoning laws, incredible property values and tax structure, and a physical wall of patrolled fence; the community had been enclosed for several years. The Grants had to identify themselves to a hard-eyed private cop, who checked them carefully against his Expected Visitors roster before opening the gate and giving them directions. Three more cops were visible; all four were armed. Jennifer suspected that they would have checked twice as thoroughly if Dena had been in the car.
She looked around as they drove down the blacktop road through Orient Point. If you looked out to sea, you might indeed think you were somewhere along the Fundy Shore. The houses were no closer together than they would have been there, gardens were just as frequent, Connecticut on the horizon could just as easily have been New Brunswick. But the houses were much too new and well kept, the lawns too neatly manicured, the gardens too small and impractical, the cars too new and expensive. Farmers and fishermen did not live here. And of course, if you looked over your shoulder the illusion was gone, for there was nothing resembling a mountain from one end of Long Island to the other, and its own sand dunes and wild rose hips were rarely to be found in Nova Scotia.
Nonetheless Jennifer began to enjoy herself; she was a sea-and-sky fan, however they might be decorated. And Long Island beaches were sand, not rock—that would be fun. A shame it was too late in the day for a swim. But perhaps just as well—the only bathing suit Jennifer had brought with her was the one she had bought just before leaving Halifax, and although Dena had overseen and approved the purchase, Russell had not yet seen it and would certainly hit the roof when he did. Jennifer herself was not certain she was ready to wear it outside a dressing room.
Wilson Grant’s house stood on three acres of land overlooking Long Island Sound. Trees to east and west gave privacy from neighbours, and privacy from passersby was assured by a long series of two-meter-high pineboard and steel baffles set back from the road by about fifty meters. They were staggered so that they allowed maximum passage of wind and sunlight, yet allowed a view of the interior only to a man clearly and unmistakably trespassing. This not-quite-fence was bisected by the house, a wide one-story with built-on garage and boat shed and a large U-shaped driveway. Wilson Grant knelt in the driveway, tinkering with the carburetor of a Moped. He looked up at once when he heard the car slow, smiled when he recognized it, wiped his hands on a towel, and came to meet them.
He was just as Jennifer remembered him, short, slim, slightly pot-bellied, with a full head of snow white hair and a pepper-and-salt Van Dyke beard, and his eyes still held that mischievous twinkle she recalled so well. Her first impulse was to cry, “Grandpa!”, leap from the car before it stopped rolling, and hurl herself up into his arms for their usual greeting, The Battle of the Kisses—a ritual in which each attempted to kiss the other into unconsciousness, and which Jennifer always won. Barely in time she remembered that she was thirteen years old now. With an enormous effort she sat still, and when her father had shut off the car she got out the way she imagined a princess would leave a coach and waited demurely for her grandfather to approach her.
He had clearly been expecting a Battle of the Kisses, but he took in the situation at once and shifted gears smoothly. He came near, bowed lower than she had thought possible for a man of his age, straightened, and said, “Hello, Jennifer. It’s wonderful to see you again. You look simply ravishing,” with his face perfectly straight.
Immensely pleased, she curtsied in return. “Thank you Grandfather,” she said formally. “It’s wonderful to see you too. Your new home is quite lovely.”
“Thank you, my dear, but I’m afraid it is nowhere near so beautiful as it seemed before you arrived.” He took her hand and kissed it. She felt a tingle of pleasure begin in her scalp and race to her toes. Oh God, she thought, I bet I’m blushing, oh shit. “Excuse me, won’t you, while I say hello to your driver?”
He turned to Russell then and the two men hugged long and hard.
“Hi, Pop. You’re looking great.”
“And you look like a man who’s driven the length of Long Island. You’re just in time to help me out with a desperate problem.”
“Name it.”
“I’ve just learned there’s too much gin in the house. It’s an ugly situation, but it has to be dealt with. Can I count on you?”
“Isn’t there something in the Bible about the gins of the fathers who are visited by their sons?”
Wilson Grant winced and turned back to Jennifer. “And perhaps a split of vermouth for you, my dear?”
She was fiercely proud that he was asking her and not her father. She wanted to peek at Russell to see what he thought of the idea, but refused to let herself. “That would be lovely,” she replied, and at once worried that the wine would make her lose her poise. She resolved to take tiny sips.
“Let’s go in then.”
“Shouldn’t we get this heap stored before we get comfortable?” Russell said, indicating the car.
The elder Grant frowned. “I did my best. But you turned out practical just the same.”
They parked the car out behind the boat shed; it would not mind exposure in the least and sunlight would keep its battery at full charge. It was not necessary to put it up on blocks; Russell simply extruded the built-in front and rear jacks.
“You still can’t get Detroit interested in this car?”
“I gave up years ago, Pop.”
“Cretins.”
“No, they’re reasonably intelligent. Look at her. I designed and built her the year after Jennifer was born. I might need to replace her in fifteen or twenty years, and I might not.”
Wilson Grant frowned. “To quote a writer I worked with once, ‘If the question begins, “Why don’t they—?” the answer is, “money.”’”
“That’s part of it,” Russell agreed. “But look there where I’ve switched the pedals. In my car it’s easier to get from the accelerator to the brake than the other way ’round—and that little feature has saved my life twice so far. It wouldn’t cost a red cent to make all cars that way. But the average driver could never unlearn the habit of doing it the stupid way, and he’d kill himself quicker.”
“So once a stupid mistake is institutionalized it’s too late to change it.”
“Well, you used to work in publishing.”
Regina Parkhill was waiting for them in the living room, a petite slender platinum blonde in her mid-sixties who could quite easily have passed for thirty-five. Her tan was astonishing. She greeted Russell effusively, then turned to Jennifer and regarded her as though she had just materialized amid thunderclaps and fire. “Jenny,” she cried, “my dear God how you’ve grown! Such a big little girl, I can hardly believe my eyes!”
You’re such a little big girl, I know I can’t believe mine, Jennifer thought cattily. “Hello, Grandmother.”
Regina winced. “Call me ‘Regina,’ please, darling.”
“If you’ll call me Jennifer.” Same deal I offered you last time.
The older woman blinked and smiled. “Of course, dear. Wilson, shall we take martinis out on the terrace—and a cola for little Jenny?”
“Good idea, darling—but I’ve already offered Jennifer a split of vermouth, and she’s accepted.”
“What? Nonsense, Wilson, she’s just a child. I’m sure she’d prefer a soft drink—wouldn’t you, honey?”
Jennifer opened her mouth—and caught her father’s look. It was a private code between them, and it meant, “I know you have a perfect right to make a scene—but please don’t, and I’ll make it up to you later.” She closed her mouth.
And Grandpa opened his. “Regina, don’t be rude. Our guest has already expressed a preference, it’s not our place to change her mind.”
“Darling, she is thirteen years old.”
“Which makes her husband-high by the standards of most of the civilized cultures in history. Her father has some rights in this regard, but he raises no objection—so please fetch along the vermouth and a pony glass.” He turned and led his descendants to the terrace. Jennifer smiled to herself, loving him.
The view was stunning. A vast expanse of rolling green dotted with truly lovely trees and a Japanese rock garden ended in a cliff, beyond which lay the Sound. Three or four miles out an immense oil supertanker made its stately way east. The weather was perfect, the sky seemed clean and clear, Connecticut was a greasy smudge on the horizon. When the conversation of her elders turned to the war in Africa, Jennifer excused herself and wandered the grounds. She took mental notes, for Sophie would want to hear all about this when she got back home to Halifax—best friends were useful for helping you to remember things. The rock garden held her attention for some time. She tried to watch the rocks grow, and failed as always, but did not mind failing in such a beautiful place. There was a superb bonsai in the garden, and she devoted some time to trying to understand the nature of the gentle suggestion Grandpa was making to it with a guy wire. Again she failed; the proposed alteration would, it seemed to her, decrease the tree’s wa rather than enhance it. She decided it was Regina’s idea.
She felt a little like a botched bonsai herself: overdeveloped in some aspects and retarded in others. Intellectually she was genius-plus—but physiologically she was thirteen and a half years old and her goddamned period was never going to come. All her friends had gotten theirs ages ago. Grandpa had just said that she was “husband-high”—but she wasn’t! She decided that if nothing happened by her fourteenth birthday she would try to prime the pump by cutting her throat.
She drifted over to the cliff edge. A wooden staircase led down the face of the bluff to the beach far below. Of course Regina had enjoined her to “be careful if you go down that staircase, dear”; of course the stairway would have been perfectly safe for a retarded five-year-old with Parkinson’s Disease. The beach was indeed sandy and free of driftwood, absolutely unoccupied, and Jennifer yearned to climb down to it and get sand in her shoes. A year or two ago she would have—but it was late in the day, and the stairs were long and steep, and she did not feel that her father should have to handle all the socializing alone. She returned to the terrace and endured a ghastly hour of conversation with Regina, during which she was twice forced to literally bite her tongue.
Dinner was served on the terrace, and it was exquisite; it was not until after coffee and dessert that the argument began.
Jennifer started it, quite innocently, by wondering aloud why Wilson and Regina had sold their previous home and moved here. “I mean, this place is lovely—but so was the other one, and you had more land.”
“I meant to ask that too,” Russell agreed. “I thought you were settled in Southampton for keeps.”
“They closed the golf course,” his father said, smiling.
“No, seriously, Pop. I remember you telling me about trying to get a zoning exception so that you could be buried on that property.”
Grandfather’s smile remained fixed; he said nothing.
His wife broke the awkward silence. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Wilson!”
“My dear—”
“I know he’s married to one. But that’s Canada—he knows things are different here. Tell him, for God’s sake, it’s not as if you’ve anything to be ashamed of.”
Russell and Jennifer both set their glasses down and sat up straighter. They exchanged a brief glance.
“I hope you’re right,” Grandfather said, and looked his son in the eye. “Russ, it’s like this: a black family moved in next door.”
His son was visibly shaken. “Pop, you’re not serious. It’s a rib.”
“Oh God,” Regina said, rolling her eyes insolently. “I hear a knee jerking.”
“Russ—”
“I thought I cured you of racism back in the ’60’s—”
“Mind your tongue, young man, and let me finish! You’ve been in New York, you must know that the world has changed since the last time you were around here straightening out your elders. You must have seen how high racial tension is running—”
“I’m beginning to see why.”
“It’s a reality that has to be lived with, whether I like it or not. There’s a difference between racism and simple self-preservation. This all happened back when the news was full of Mau Mau bombings and murders.”
“Let me get this straight. Angry street blacks from Harlem moved in and started sneering at you and leering at Regina? Welfare cheaters with drug habits and ghetto-blaster radios bought a half-million-dollar house in the Hamptons?”
“They had more money than we did, actually. University professors.” Just like Dena’s parents, Jennifer thought. “I watched them move in—their furniture was beautiful.”
“Then why—?”
“Simple economics,” Regina said blandly. “Your father didn’t want to sell—men are so impractical—but I insisted. And events proved me right. We were the first to unload, and we got back ninety-five percent of our investment. Within two weeks a dozen other families had sold their homes too, and the longer they hesitated, the more of a beating they took. We weren’t being racist, we were protecting our investment—and we still took a small loss. If I hadn’t put my foot down, we could have lost everything. I still don’t see why we can’t sue that realtor—the property values in the neighbourhood went down fifty percent thanks to him. It has nothing to do with race itself.”
Russell opened and closed his mouth several times. At last he managed to say, “You know why there are so many cattle stampedes? Because every smart cow knows that the first cow to bolt has the best chance of not getting trampled in the stampede she starts.”
“Russ—” his father began.
He turned to Jennifer. “It seems to me we passed the train station on the way in. About a klick or so back?”
She remembered it, the cleanest-looking train station she had ever seen. “On the left.”
He nodded and stood up. “Thanks for the food and drink—it was wonderful,” he said to his father and stepmother, and turned back to Jennifer. “Let’s go, princess.” He turned on his heel and strode off across the terrace, headed around the house to the road.
“What’s the hurry?” Regina said, trying to persuade herself that the situation was salvageable. “The last train isn’t for hours yet.”
“It’s the next train that interests me,” he called without stopping or looking back.
“Russell, God damn it,” his father began, and gave it up.
“Well of all the…nerve,” Regina sputtered. “I, I never in all—”
Jennifer stood up, faced her grandfather until he was forced to meet her eyes. “Grampa,” she said softly then “I’m very disappointed.” He looked away.
“—such a rude and unforgivable—” Regina was still raving.
“SHUT UP,” Jennifer bellowed. Near the corner of the house, Russell stopped in his tracks. “Grandfather has you for an excuse. What’s your excuse?”
Regina’s mouth worked, but the sounds that spilled out were not words.
“I’ll bet you cheat at solitaire,” Jennifer said, and saw that one strike home, and went to join her father.
They walked in silence in the gathering dusk, listening to crickets and the occasional distant backyard stereo. They were obliged to walk along the roadside, as the community did not have sidewalks. There was no traffic. Most of the houses they passed were lit, but they saw no people. A very fat man passed them on a snarling Moped; he looked them over carefully. Less than a minute later a prowl car arrived to question them. Jennifer was impressed by the response-time.
